Can’t fathom where the last decade went. True, some of its
ravages have left their mark on this poor body of mine, but in other ways,
things have been moving so fast and so far that the universe has become
virtually unrecognizable from the one we knew at the beginning of the decade.
Of course, the
dominant motif has been the spread of this vast network of interconnectedness
that links most of humanity together. I am talking here about the digital
connections in which, we are told, 3.5 billion of us are engaged these days,
treating each other and everyone who has access, to the tedium that defines our
lives.
But lest we
forget, our digital inter-connectedness can never match the biological
connectedness that links us, as humans, manifested in the indivisibility of the
DNA sequences that weave us all together. To emphasize the point, although the
number of genes coding for human characteristics and features has been
downsized from the 100,000 that was calculated at the opening stages of the new
genetics era to between 24,000 and 25,000 now, there is still a huge potential
for variation that transcends family, group and region and exposes the
emptiness of those who would divide us. And here we include non-essential
attributes like skin colour, hair texture, body shape, physiognomy. It’s rather
like being in a car lot where you’re looking at buying yourself a nice new
motor. On that lot you see an array of vehicles, stretching from horizon to
horizon: Different shapes, different sizes, colours, different marque, and
indeed different models, some only slightly differing from the other. But all
have four wheels (When did you last see a three-wheeler? Whenever one of these
appears these days, it does so mainly for comic relief), a steering wheel, gear
shift, accelerator and brake pedals, and the array of instruments on a
dashboard. The motor under the hood, however, is the same: It could be internal
combustion or, nowadays, electric. But they are still the engine that moves the
whole thing along.
The point I am
making is that all those variations do not detract from the essence of
‘carness’, if I could coin a word. By the same token, human beings, on our
car-lot of humanity, are essentially the same under the hood, despite or because
of the 25000 genes that we each embody.
And, prick any of us, we bleed the same red blood. But it has become
fashionable, in some quarters, to somehow, deny this reality by attempting to
drive a wedge between communities and groups for only one sordid purpose, capturing
power. From the streets of London to America’s heartland, and from the domes of
the Kremlin to places along the languid waters of the Danube, and from the
hovels of New Delhi to the dragons rising in China, and from the unfortunate
Rohingyas on to Brazil’s burning Amazon,
“strong” men (and women, sadly) have wrested control from the hands of
social democrats who, until recently, have been trying to make the world a
better place. But by the end of the decade, things have taken a decidedly bad
turn. True, the Robert Mugabes and Hosni Mubaraks, the Gadafis, the Tunisian
Ben Alis, and The Gambian Yahyah Jammeh have been swept away. But the optimism
that followed these ejections have not fulfilled their promise.
Instead, there
are important countries in which people are incited to hate each other to
a level that has become totally toxic orchestrated by a President of the United
States, for example, who, it seems, believes that wholesale disruption is the
brilliant approach to refashioning world order. Even his domestic policies reverberate
negatively around the world, and his so-called foreign policy directly
threatens world peace. All we can do is hold our breath and hope that we can
survive to exhale in the purer air of broad and sunlit uplands.
So, despite
the early signs, let us not despair but instead, wish ourselves survival in 2020.
Tell
Fren Tru
